A Family Affair

by Fern Michaels

  Both women were seated in the sitting room, in the hotel’s fluffy white robes, when room service rang the bell thirty minutes later.

  “Coffee smells good,” Emma said when the door closed behind the waiter. She poured for both of them. Trish took it black, and Emma added real cream and sugar. “Oh, this is so good. Best cup of coffee I’ve had in years. Okay, yes, Trish, I’ve had years to think about what you asked me. Yes, there were little signs that at the time, I ignored because they didn’t seem all that important.

  “Jeff started leaving the house at five in the morning. Climbing that corporate ladder bullshit was how he explained it. He never got home till around midnight. I couldn’t stay up that late. He never saw Missy, never went to any of her school functions. Told me that was a mother’s job. After that, my household allowance was cut almost in half. Said his firm had cut back, and we had to economize. Then he cut off the charge cards for the same reason. I rarely if ever charged anything, anyway, mostly just stuff for Missy or the house. You know me. Mom taught us to be frugal.

  “By the time he dumped me, I had no money, no credit, no cash, and while he gave me the house in the settlement, I couldn’t make the payments, so he took it back. What he gave me in alimony was a joke. So, yes, the signs were there. I just didn’t want to believe them and hoped he was telling the truth and it was just a rough spot he hit and things would go back on track. It didn’t work out that way. I’m still paying off my share of the divorce. I have no credit. I live day to day, paycheck to paycheck, and before you can ask, yes, I cashed in the monies from our parents’ insurance and that little CD I had. It’s all gone now.”

  “Did . . . did you fall out of love with Jeff?”

  “I did. I just didn’t know it at the time. I was operating on wounded pride for way too long. I thought it was love, but the truth is, there was no love for either one of us. One time, I smelled perfume on his clothes. He gave me some silly story about a woman in the elevator who was mashed up against him and was drenched in perfume.”

  “I still love Malik. I will always love him. I think I might be one of those people they write songs about. You know, one true love and all that.”

  “Then you need to go back, Trish. Talk it out. I don’t want you to have regrets down the road. If it’s not meant to be, you need to be able to walk away on your own. Anything else is too painful and debilitating. I don’t want to see you go through what the girls and I and many, many other women have gone through. I don’t know what to tell you about the pregnancy issue. To me, that rule is barbaric, and it’s a man-made rule, so it should be one that can be changed. Maybe that’s what your husband is trying to do, and his people are fighting him over it. If he’s the supreme ruler, I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “I got a text from him last night, and he said he misses me and that he loves me. It made me smile. I know I have to go back. And I will when I’m ready. First, we have to get you guys squared away. I think you all should go into business for yourselves. Emma, think about all that stuff I told you about in my foyer. You could sell one-of-a-kind things, like those fabulous silks. You’re a Realtor, right? Even though you are still working as a real-estate salesperson, look into finding a building, and I’ll buy it, and you and the girls can set up shop. You’ll be your own bosses. Just check your listings, and I bet before the day is over, you’ll find a suitable building.

  “You all need a job, you need good health insurance, and there are four of you, so you can get a group policy. I’ve set up bank accounts for all of you. You have good credit cards now. I’ve paid the taxes and the home owners’ insurance for three years for each of you, so that’s a good buffer for all of you until you can get a business up and running. If the economy doesn’t rebound, you at least have a buffer.

  “Make everything outrageously expensive. I’ve seen and found over these past few years that the more it costs, the more people want it. Tr y and figure that out. You have to see to all the paperwork, and, by the way, you get the commission on those properties I bought. Win-win, Emma! Jeez, I almost forgot. I have to go back to your apartment complex and pay off your leases. Once you get your things out of there, I don’t want you to go back. If you don’t want to go to New York today, what are you going to do?”

  “Go to Walmart or Target and outfit my new house. What are you going to do, Trish?”

  Trish thought about the urgent text messages that had come through from Connie and Ernie yesterday that she hadn’t responded to. “I have some things I need to take care of. I’m going back to Vegas tomorrow. I booked an early morning flight before I went to sleep. I want to know I’m leaving all of you settled and happy.”

  “Trish, I can never thank you enough, nor can the girls. You have literally saved our lives.”

  “Tell me something, Emma. What do you think you would feel or think, the girls, too, if you found out your ex-husbands were going to go to jail?”

  Emma’s hands started to tremble. She set the coffee cup down on the table and stared at her sister. Trish wasn’t the least surprised at her response. “Missy will be devastated.”

  “That’s not what I asked you, Emma. I asked you what you would feel and think.”

  Her eyes wide, Emma stared at Trish. “What aren’t you telling me here?” Emma’s voice verged on the hysterical. “Why are you asking me this?”

  “Emma, I want you to trust me, okay? I have suspicions, a very serious distrust of Jeff. I might as well admit it to you now. I always did distrust him. Things just don’t add up for me where he’s concerned. Get back to my question, okay?”

  “I’d like to see him languishing in some prison in the general population. I know I can speak for the girls, too, if that is going to be your next question. I don’t like to think I’m the kind of person who feels and thinks like that, but these last years have been a horror for us all. If Jeff had just been a little bit kind, if he’d helped me just a little, but he didn’t. He stripped me bare, then stole my daughter from me. There, you asked me, and I told you.”

  “Okay, then, let’s get dressed, pick up the girls, then recover my rental car from the Outback parking lot and get this show on the road. I’ll take you all out to the Enclave, and you can do what you have to do, and I’ll do what I have to do. Let’s meet up at, say, four o’clock. We’ll have a happy hour somewhere, a good dinner, and call it a night, if you’re all agreeable. I’m anxious to get back and . . . to see what my future holds for me.”

  The two sisters hugged tightly.

  “It’s nice to know you can always count on family, isn’t it?” Trish whispered.

  Emma released her hold on Trish. She squared her shoulders, looked her sister in the eye, and said, “Damn straight, little sister.”

  It was eleven o’clock when Trish entered the hotel and headed up to her room. She’d done all she could for her sister and her sister’s friends. Emma would follow up with all the pounds of paperwork the Enclave was holding for her. She’d paid off the leases, the girls had collected their personal belongings, and they were all at their new digs. Credit cards with high limits in hand, they were embarking on a shopping spree to fill their cupboards and closets. Trish didn’t think she’d ever seen four happier women in her whole life. Well, perhaps one happy woman, Soraya.

  The first thing Trish did when she kicked off her shoes was to call Connie. She listened intently for a good twenty minutes and finally said, “I’ll call Ernie first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow. Thanks, friend.”

  When she woke the next morning, after eight o’clock, she called room service for a pot of coffee. She was too nervous to eat anything just yet. She waited for it to arrive before she called Ernie. It was still early in Vegas. Ernie could be a bear, she’d heard, early in the morning. Nonetheless, nine o’clock Vegas time wasn’t that early.

  Trish poured her coffee. As she was bringing the cup to her lips, she had a wild thought. Could drinking a lot of coffee prevent her from getting pregna
nt? The thought was so ludicrous, she gulped at the coffee in her cup and finished it in two long swallows. She poured a second cup, leaned back in the chair, propped her feet on the coffee table, and called Ernie.

  The two old friends talked for a good thirty minutes, playing catch up. They talked about the cold weather, the snow, the skiing in Tahoe, the latest casino gossip, and a new dance routine he was trying to perfect. They switched over to Soraya and how things were in Dubai. Then he talked about his new wife and how happy he was.

  When there was a lull in the conversation, Ernie said, “Talk to me, Trish. I need precise details, your objectives, what exactly you want and expect. I know. I know. Connie explained it all, but I want to hear it from you, too. Your reasons don’t matter to me or to the person who will be working with you on this. We just all have to be on the same page.

  “I have to tell you straight up that this guy is one expensive dude. His fee is whatever slice of beachfront property he has his eye on. I think I can safely say he’s never taken a job for less than seven figures. Tell me now if that is going to be a problem. It could be quadruple that amount, so you need to know that before I put you in touch with him.”

  “What kind of guarantee does he give that he can get the information I want?” Trish asked.

  “There are no guarantees in this life, Trish. You know better than that. I will tell you this. He, to my knowledge—and I would have heard otherwise—has never failed to deliver. There’s no one better. Now, having said that, you might not like his results, but boo hoo to you. You will get what you ask and pay for. The results are something he cannot control. So, should I call him to pave the way or not?”

  “Beachfront property, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ernie drawled.

  Chapter 16

  TRISH SAT AND TWIDDLED HER THUMBS AND SIPPED COFFEE, her gaze on the huge window in her hotel suite. Snow flurries were swirling about. That had to mean it was going to be cold outside. She thought about turning on the television to check the weather. Why bother? Snow flurries meant it was around thirty-two degrees. As she sipped at her still-hot coffee, she wished she had asked Ernie if the nameless person would call her soon or later. No sooner had the thought entered and exited her head than the phone rang. With the words beachfront property swirling around inside her head, she answered her cell phone, but not before she took a huge deep breath.

  Trish wasn’t quite sure what she expected to hear, but the soft, cultured voice that said, “I’m a friend of Ernie,” wasn’t it. “He asked me to call you. Tell me how I can help you.”

  “Ah, yes. Did Ernie share our conversation?” Trish asked. She took a moment to wonder why she was feeling so jittery and nervous. Maybe because she knew she was breaking the law, and the voice that was speaking to her was going to help her do it.

  “Only that you needed help and could afford my fee.”

  Trish cleared her throat, her eyes on the snow swirling outside the hotel window. She wondered where the man talking to her lived. Probably on some luxurious secluded island that he owned, basking in warm sunshine. “It’s complicated. It’s just not one person. It’s four people, maybe five. I want . . . It’s a package deal. Does that mean four or five beachfront properties or just one?”

  The voice on the other end of the phone laughed. It was a nice sound. Trish found herself relaxing. “One fee. Now, tell me what you need. Then tell me what you want. After that, tell me what you will settle for.”

  “I can’t settle, and what I want isn’t relevant. I need what I am about to tell you.”

  “Well, that’s settled, then. Do we have a time frame?”

  Did she have a time frame? She hadn’t thought of it in those terms. “Well, my plans right now are rather vague. I’m planning on leaving the country possibly by the end of the week. I’d like this put to bed before I leave. I guess I should say I’m flexible.”

  “That’s good to know. Tell me now what it is you need. I don’t want to know the why of it, so be concise.”

  Trish licked at her dry lips. She could feel her heart fluttering in her chest. She could change her mind, back out, decide not to break any laws right now. All she had to do was break the connection.

  “I can’t tell you what I need without telling you some of the why. So here goes. Five years ago this man, Jefferson Davis, divorced my sister and took her to the cleaners. Since then, she has lived below the poverty level. He hid his money, while my sister had to scrimp and scrape just to get through each day. He gave her the house, but she couldn’t afford to keep it. This is all because when they got married, he insisted she give up her job to be a wife and mother. After the divorce, he got himself a trophy wife, and then, because he had the money, he took my sister’s daughter, my niece, too.

  “The story is essentially the same with the other three men and my sister’s friends, who were left in the same position. These four men are all lawyers, so the deck was stacked against the women from the get-go. They all made sure that the women didn’t have the funds to hire decent lawyers. In the end, they just gave up. The four men were friends prior to their divorces, though they worked for different law firms. They all resigned and formed their own firm, and now they’re international lawyers.

  “I think they are laundering money in the Middle East, but I don’t have any way to prove it. I just have suspicions, but my gut instinct has always been good. I don’t think I’m wrong. I want you to find out where the money is, how much there is, and how we can make it disappear. By disappear, I mean just some of it. Actually, I’m not sure what I mean in regard to the money. If there’s a way to do it with no blowback, we can give it to children’s charities, women’s shelters, that kind of thing. I want what those women were cheated out of to be given back to them. I hope I said that right.

  “Then I want the IRS and the authorities to invade their lives. Long prison terms would make everyone but the four men, and anyone else involved who has to serve them, happy. I would not be devastated if you could find a way for their identities, as well as their money, to disappear. In other words, I want their lives reduced to rubble. I’d also like to see them lose those fancy houses they live in with their trophy wives. And if you can find a way to cancel their country-club memberships, do that, too. And while you’re at it, I’d like some misery to befall the skanky lawyer who represented all four men in their divorces. Just make it five in total. I’m sure your fee will reflect all five men. I don’t want any of the fallout to touch my sister or her friends. They have to be kept out of it entirely.”

  The silence on the other end of the phone bothered Trish. Finally, she heard the cultured voice say, “It’s all doable. My best estimate would be three days, possibly four. If it goes longer, I will apprise you of the fact. I’m going to need to know where you want the proceeds—let’s call it the ladies’ severance—to go.”

  “I thought about that. I’m going to open a bank account in Las Vegas when I return tomorrow. I assume you want me to have Ernie be our go-between. When I have it all set up, I’ll be in touch. Unless you can come up with something better.”

  “I think I can come up with something better. I’ll be in touch. But I will need the amount of money you want allocated for each woman. I assume you want interest, and money for the misery they endured, to be added to the total amount.” Trish loved the amused tone in the man’s voice.

  “You assume right. I have to figure out the amount. It will be fair. Maybe on top of the interest and misery, we could add a bonus, not outrageous, but a bonus nonetheless.”

  “Doable. Tell me why and how you think these men are in the money-laundering business.”

  “You said you didn’t want to know the why or to get into personalities.”

  “I did say that, but I need something more to go on.”

  “I just know bits and pieces I’ve picked up on. The emirates are known for money laundering. I live in Dubai. I understand that before I moved there, His Royal Highness, along with the leaders of
the other six emirates, signed a deal with these four lawyers to bring new business to them because the oil will be running out soon. A contract was signed. When my husband’s father died, he took over the reins. He was educated here in the States and knows business. Actually, he has a doctorate, as does his second in command. I heard them talking and, as I said, picked up things here and there. I think the contract is up for renewal soon. I know that sounds vague, but it’s all I have.”

  “Does Mr. Davis know you are married to the current emir of Dubai?”

  “I don’t know. My sister assured me that she never told anyone, not even her three friends. Even my niece didn’t know. I asked my sister yesterday if that was still true, and she said yes. Jeff isn’t stupid, though. He’s slick, and he’s manipulative. If their contract is up for renewal, I can almost guarantee that my husband will not go along with it. As emir of Dubai, he is also the prime minister of the emirates, with veto power over really important national policies, as enacted by the legislature. So, if he balks, the other leaders will go along. It’s the best I can offer up.”

  “It’s enough for a start. I’ll do my own research. Now let’s discuss my fee. Here is what I propose. For something as complicated as this, my fee would usually be five million dollars. But considering the details of what you want done with the monies liberated and the potential size of those funds, I suggest that after whatever the total amount to be distributed to the four ex-wives is deducted, I retain five million dollars plus five percent of whatever is left. So, if, say, one hundred five million is left after distributing money to the ex-wives, I would keep ten million—five million plus five percent of a hundred million. As long as the amount I receive that way is at least five million dollars, I will return your fee. In other words, your fee will be treated as a deposit. Does that sound fair to you?”

  Trish listened, swallowed hard, and managed to squeak out a verbal okay.